


North Star

by flowerslut



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: (Or Is It...?), Alice Has Pathokinesis, F/M, Jalice Week 2021, Jasper Sees The Future, Mild Sexual Content, Nearly Everything Else Is The Same, Power Swap, but nothing explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerslut/pseuds/flowerslut
Summary: He’s the Eye of the South. The god of war. Master of battle and oracle of death. He’s not just the most dangerous weapon the world has ever seen, but he’s a man in love. And combining those two just makes this so much worse.Jasper sees a girl in his head, and he's afraid of what comes next.Written for Jalice Week 2021. Prompt: Power/Ability Swap
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39
Collections: Jalice Week - February 2021





	North Star

**Author's Note:**

> Before you dive in, I have a favor to ask!
> 
> I've been nominated in a few different categories in this year's TwiFic Fandom Awards over on blogspot. If you could pause very quickly and go check out the page and cast a few votes, that would be amazing. If I proceed to round two in any of the categories I'll be posting an early chapter of Walk in the Dark, and will be opening up requests on my Tumblr (flowerslut) if you'd like to submit some prompts.  
> You can also go to the Jalice Network on Tumblr to see a full list of all the Jalice authors and fandom members who have been nominated this year. Lets show the Jalice fam some support!

His first vision of her almost costs him his arm.

It’s an especially vicious battle. The two older newborns he’d sent out to perform reconnaissance never returned. Jasper had witnessed their deaths in his mind before he could even relay the message to Maria that they were gone, off to complete their mission. And then by the time he made it back to Maria he was already yelling commands at the waiting newborns, knowing that a battle was incoming, and fast.

The battle is the result of a two year long stand-off.

They take heavy losses. Enough to force them back a bit. Enough to put Maria in another one of her moods despite Jasper telling her to _relax_. But she doesn’t care if it’s all a part of a plan that only he can see the end result of, all she sees is the reality of their _now_ , and it’s something that frustrates him about her.

They don’t have trust in one another, exactly. There’s a mutual understanding that they’re both working toward the same goal. They both know that they do this so that their existence is _better_. So that the bloodlust can be sated. And so that they can have their moments where they both feel strength and power and control unlike anything else.

Things desperately need in a world they were both thrusted into, entirely beyond their control.

They know this is mutually beneficial. That Jasper wouldn’t have anything without Maria. That Maria would be constantly struggling without Jasper. He’s indebted to her. And she _needs_ him.

Jasper knows that he can’t do it without her, and vice versa. But it doesn’t mean they don’t fight over things, and often.

He contemplates killing her, but there’s a grainy version of his future that distorts and twists up into miserable knots that Jasper recognizes as something to be avoided, so he refrains. And they argue. But they continue to gain land, little by little by little.

The vision is a quick thing. A snippet of a moment, really. And Jasper is frustrated by it’s timing. He has a one-track mind during battle. There is never a moment that gets overlooked, never a pair of teeth that actually get to rip into him beyond a simple bite here and there, and there is _never_ a fight that his visions distract him from.

Until this night.

The pyres are burning and he storms away, furious at himself, at the vampire that got a good shot in, at the pain that burns through his shoulder as he jerks and thrusts the limb back into place.

And he’s furious at the short vision; bright golden eyes, short-cut hair, a coy smile.

He doesn’t know who this girl is, or what business she has occupying precious space in his mind, but he’s furious that his ability has even thrusted her into his awareness, and now he has more scars to show for it.

Maria is calling after him but he knows that if he even turns and entertains her with a simple reply, their inevitable argument will likely turn into a physical fight. This group of newborns has seen their leaders quarrel enough. They still have a few months until the next purge; he knows they need to keep up the facade that what Maria and Jasper have to offer is something even worth fighting for.

If this group starts losing their edge early Jasper will be pissed if he has to kill them now. It’s not part of the plan and it will set them back nearly another year. So he continues to walk in the opposite direction of Maria as his flesh stitches itself back together, and files the girl with the wide, round eyes away in the back of his head.

He has a strategy to sort out.

* * *

Newer covens don’t know what they’re in for any more than the older ones do. Jasper has only been with Maria for a few decades, and Monterrey is far from the most desirable area in Mexico. The only covens that really try to take land from them are ones that don’t know any better.

Not only does Jasper have his visions on his side, but he’s fast, he’s strong, and with Maria’s sharp mind and eye for strategy, they are an unstoppable force of nature. She accidentally lets it slip one day, eleven years after he is turned, that it is the longest stretch she’s ever held onto Monterrey before.

Jasper files this information away for the future.

Its easy to goad surrounding covens into attacking. Especially when they’re newer and less experienced than the older covens that control the more populated areas of Mexico. Those are areas that Maria is hesitant to wander into. Because even with Jasper at her side, Maria has knowledge that he knows he can’t overlook.

And if Maria says it’s best to let the old ones be, Jasper will listen. Even if it means ignoring the visions that prove to him that it’s dangerous, but it’s _possible_.

The coven that claims the area east of New Orleans is the one that attacked them the month before, forcing a slight retreat and provoking Maria’s temper. They’re smart enough not to venture too close to their lands. After all, Monterrey is _Maria’s_ and that is becoming common knowledge throughout the south.

The New Orleans coven will only wander close enough to ensure that Beaumont isn’t overrun by enemies, and then when they notice Maria’s retreat they’ll grow confident.

It’s the best offensive strategy they have. Perfectly misleading by allowing them to think they have the upper hand and letting them grow comfortable in their ‘successes’.

And then when Jasper and Maria eventually strike, it’s a slaughter.

It’s the night that they take New Orleans once and for all—after years of back and forth—that Jasper has another vision of the girl.

It’s hardly an opportune time. He’s buried deep between Maria’s thighs, their post-battle lust getting the better of them, like usual, when suddenly it’s not Maria that’s beneath him, growling and goading, it’s the damned _girl_.

He closes his eyes shut tightly when he reaches his peak, unable to shake the vision and separate the future from his present, and when he comes, his hands digging painfully into Maria’s hips, he’s angry again.

Maria doesn’t stop him as he stalks away afterward. She’s perfectly sated and as content as Jasper has seen her in months. She’s coveted New Orleans ever since he’s known her, and now that she has it, he doesn’t need to wonder what’s next. Now that the land from Monterrey to New Orleans is hers, she won’t be content for very long, and Jasper knows this is dangerous.

But not as dangerous as the strange curiosity that is beginning to take root in his mind. He spends one too many minutes wondering about the girl, and that curiosity is enough for yet _another_ vision to come to him.

 _She laughs happily, pulling his hand in her smaller ones. “Jasper,”_ _she giggles, and she can barely get his name out, she’s laughing so much. “Come on, I promise it’ll be fun.” Her feet are digging into the dirt, uprooting grass as she attempts to pull his planted feet further after her._

_“I thought we established that we have very different ideas of fun.”_

_“Look then,” she counters, her eyes twinkling up at him, “tell me with complete honesty that you know this isn’t going to be fun.”_

Its the sound of his own voice that is foreign to him in the vision. Even more foreign than hers. He doesn’t sound like himself, and he hates that the source of these visions is something he can’t pinpoint. The girl is a stranger to him. Just another person that he doesn’t know, and doesn’t trust.

The only thing he trusts in this world are his visions.

And that’s where things get complicated.

* * *

He learns her name the night he is set to dispose of their current crop. He’s talking to Maria, discussing the pros and cons of keeping Peter around; Jasper knows he’s going to get his way. After all, the man knows the gulf coast well, having spent his adolescence alongside his father on a fishing boat, and with so much more land under their control it will do them good to have someone who is familiar with wide stretches of land _and_ sea.

They’re still acclimating to New Orleans’ terrain. They need all the help they can get, he argues.

She’s just about to relent when a vision seizes him.

_He reaches forward and brushes her wet hair away from her forehead, prompting her to close her eyes and hum as his knuckles trail their way gently down the side of her face. It’s raining, and they are in what looks like a city, and his peripheral is hazy because all he can focus on is the girl._

_Theres a strange sensation in this vision that makes it so unlike any other he’s ever witnessed. It… feels. Simple as that. There’s a warmth to it he can’t tear his attention away from and when she sighs his name, this vision-version of him replies with hers._

_“Alice.”_

Maria misinterprets his silence as hesitance. So when she dismisses his desire to keep Peter around, Jasper silently curses as she stalks away. He knows she’s going to be pissed when he comes back from the purge with Peter still among them. The argument he sees that they’ll have will be bad, but there’s no changing his mind.

For the first time in as long as he can remember, he doesn’t even mind that he’ll be having a screaming match with her later.

“Alice,” he doesn’t dare say the girl’s name too loudly, even knowing that he is fully alone and that no one will overhear. It feels dangerous to speak it out loud and he _knows_ that he won’t be able to say it anymore.

 _Alice_. It’s the name of a girl that he doesn’t know outside of his own mind. A girl who perhaps exists somewhere, far from here. A girl who doesn’t mean anything to him.

 _Yet_ , his visions tease him. _She doesn’t mean anything, yet._

* * *

Maria’s biggest mistake is thinking that Jasper in infallible. He tells her time and time again that they can’t rely on his visions too much. But their successes have blinded her and Jasper fears that if she keeps trying to stretch their lands further, it will only have diar consequences.

It’s only after they’ve taken over Mobile and Pensacola when Jasper realizes that there are no more covens to be fought east of New Orleans. There are no more newborn armies that meet them and, to be honest, it’s far more land and blood than they need. (Truthfully, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.)

While each victory leaves him with a sense of pride that he can’t help but soak in—after all, none of the old covens control this much land—he knows it’s dangerous to get addicted to this feeling. He can see in his mind where the future twists and sours and even though he can’t quite tell what will happen if they continue on like this, he knows it will end in fire.

There are no more armies this way, Jasper realizes very quickly with a shock that sets his entire worldview askew. _There are no more armies,_ he thinks to himself after swiftly dismembering a terror-stricken mated pair that had wandered too close, and too comfortably. It’s not guilt he feels—he and Maria have rightfully earned everything they have—but the unease makes him hesitate the further they travel east.

They end up driving out nomads and smaller covens by the dozens, but still, Maria is not sated.

The first time Jasper sees a vision of the Volturi—their dark capes flowing, pyres burning—he races off to Maria and grabs her roughly by the arm. She nearly takes his head off that night when he explains that if they don’t retreat back toward Baton Rouge they’ll end up dead.

She kicks and screams and shrieks, but when Jasper tells her that he’s leaving with Peter and the newborns whether she’s coming or not, she _attacks_.

Jasper only spares her life on a whim.

Jasper and Peter leave with the army and head straight to Houston. When Maria shows up, trailing behind them four hours later, she’s angrier than he’s ever seen her. Jasper doesn’t even stop her when she singlehandedly massacres the newborns. Seven dead before she even lights a match.

It’s a way to let her blow off steam that keeps them—Jasper and Peter _and_ Maria—alive.

But it also creates a divide between them so wide that he knows that things will never return to the way they used to be.

He refuses to explain his reasons beyond vague mentions of Volturi interference, and he’s so goddamned frustrated by her that eventually he lies, telling her that even keeping hold of New Orleans would be dangerous at this point.

It’s not true, of course. But she’s the one who wanted Louisiana, not him. It’s a way of punishing her beyond what they’ve already been forced to sacrifice, and it only leaves him feeling better about their retreat for a few weeks before he’s frustrated again.

Jasper knows the Volturi are dangerous. He knows that he and Maria would stand no chance if they ever decided to come and put a stop to what they were doing; newborn armies had been against their rules for decades before Jasper was even turned, and they’ve been playing with fire—gambling with their _lives_ —ever since they decided that Texas wasn’t enough.

* * *

He and Maria have garnered up enough of a reputation that no one approaches their lands for nearly three decades after their retreat from Florida. It gives Maria enough time to mourn their losses and set her sights on an area easier to attain.

The Sierra Madres aren’t desirable, but the land beyond it is, so they spend years exploring the sparsely populated mountain range, knowing that knowledge of the land will be invaluable if— _when_ , he corrects, as he sees the inevitability in his mind—Maria decides she wants a closer look at California.

Maria when she is adequately distracted is a Maria Jasper can tolerate, so for a long time there are month-long stretches where they part ways. Her, to stake out more land and build her maps, while he stays behind, guarding a city that every vampire in a five-hundred mile radius is too afraid to even consider approaching.

Monterrey doesn’t need protecting any more than he does, so Jasper finds himself with a great deal of free time when he’s not keeping the newborns in check. They keep a smaller group nowadays, barely more than eight including Peter, so Jasper usually leaves their supervision to him.

It’s during these years Jasper becomes enraptured with his visions of the girl— _Alice_ , his mind always reminds him when he pointedly refuses to think her name. He’s careful not to let his mind wander when he is amongst company, but he is sure that Peter has begun to suspect something is going on.

The knowledge that _the North knows peace_ sits heavy on him.

It’s a fact that has haunted him with fury ever since he realized that’s why vampires stopped fighting back with newborns of their own. Because they didn’t _have_ newborns. They had covens and mates. They didn’t have armies.

Knowing that he’s been lied to by Maria just frustrates him, and he blames himself for a long time. As a psychic he should have known better. He should have _seen_ more. But he hadn’t, and that’s not something he can change now.

It’s not like he would’ve gone anywhere in those early years. He enjoys having all the blood he can gorge himself on. He enjoys the thrill of the fight and the accomplished feeling another victory leaves him with. And not only that, he’s good at it. His gift is perfect for this kind of thing.

It’s as if he was granted his ability just to be the perfect weapon.

He has many names down here, but no one calls him by his given name outside of Maria, and that’s only when she’s irritated at him. Depending on who you ask, he is either the Major, ‘the vicious one’, or the Eye of the South.

He wonders sometimes who Jasper even is, and decides it doesn’t matter.

Jasper watches in his mind as Peter begins to confide in one of their newer recruits, a small, weak newborn whose name Jasper doesn’t even know. It’s not something Maria would ever let slide, but Peter has made for an easy companion in the years he’s been by Jasper’s side, so Jasper looks the other way most of the time.

After all, he’s the closest thing to an ally he has now that Maria’s loyalties have become strained.

Peter isn’t something Jasper wants to give up, so when Jasper sees the man running, leaving this life (and Jasper) behind, it takes him several minutes to realize that he’s not just furious, he’s _hurt_.

Jasper spends the better part of an afternoon toying with what to do next. Maria would want Peter dead. And a part of Jasper agrees with the idea. But he… there’s something stopping Jasper from doing it. Something outside of the visions that proves to Jasper that the choice will only make him miserable.

He confronts him that night.

“Why?” He demands after he’s gotten Peter alone.

Peter freezes at the question, and Jasper knows that he’s slowly realizing that whatever daydreams he’s been entertaining are something that’s triggered a vision in Jasper’s watchful mind.

Jasper knows that he could kill Peter. That he _should_ kill Peter. But Peter isn’t betraying them in the same way Nettie and Lucy did. He’s just _running_.

It’s something that Jasper has never considered doing. Even after slowly realizing that the North knew relative peace. (After all, the last coven they destroyed in Pensacola tried to beg and bargain for their lives using _words_.)

Jasper is not a man of peace. He’s a wild oracle. A god of war, and of death.

Jasper has never imagined a life outside of Monterrey. Even when visions of the girl intrude on his thoughts. Jasper pushes them to the side and files them away.

There is still silence between the two men, and Jasper is biting his tongue before Peter even speaks, knowing how this is about to play out.

“Will you kill me?” Peter’s eyes are hard and Jasper forces himself to hold his gaze.

Jasper swallows, hating that Peter knows what he _should_ do. “No.”

“I have to get her out of here, Major.”

“Who?” For a split-second, Jasper’s mind goes to the stranger that lives in his mind, before realizing that Peter means the newborn. “Why?” He asks again, his words more demanding.

“I have to save her,” Peter looks agonized then. “I can’t let her die, too.”

Jasper is suddenly incensed, “You have ten minutes,” he spits the words angrily, knowing that Peter’s mind is made up, and frustrated over the fact that he knows he can’t kill the man. He can’t _do_ it.

He looks away for a moment, knowing that when he looks back up at the space across from him in the empty, long-forgotten barn, Peter will be gone.

Jasper stares at the space Peter occupied for ten and then twenty minutes. Then, he heads back to the farmhouse where the newborns are. By morning they’re all dead and Jasper is finally alone.

* * *

Maria is incensed when she returns the following week, five newborns in tow, and sees that Jasper is alone.

The lie he tells her is easy since it isn’t far from the truth. Peter developed an attachment to one of the newborns, and Jasper had to get rid of them both. Then, he purged the newborns early because he knew they would try to run for it, too.

She’s irritated, knowing she now has to turn more newborns soon; she doesn’t like being without a proper army for more than a couple of days at a time. She’s _so_ irritated, in fact, that she dismembers the group she’s with, too. Killing is merely an outlet for her frustrations nowadays, and it’s something Jasper has in common with her.

It’s times like this that he remembers they aren’t very different down in their core.

By the time their freshest crop of newborns have reached their first month,Maria is off again, taking seven this time, and leaving him with only four.

“Try not to kill them before I get back,” she sniffs angrily before departing for the Sierras.

With her gone it’s easier to watch for visions of Peter, and when Jasper looks back on these days, he thinks that this was the beginning of the end.

Peter and the newborn run and run and run until suddenly they don’t have to. They’re careful and they move slowly through some territories and quickly through others, but despite their fear, Jasper knows that they’ll be fine. That Peter will be alright. He learns Charlotte’s name and watches as they wander through human cities at night, marveling at the lights and sounds and the strangeness of the human world.

It’s a strange thing to witness in his visions but his attention is captivated by Peter and his young mate.

It doesn’t take long for it to grow difficult to watch.

Peter is _happy_. He laughs and they wander and feed and they don’t get into any fights. There are a few close calls when the man’s scars frighten those they encounter, but Peter is better at talking these people down that Jasper ever gave him credit for. But of course he’d be good at it, after years of practicing on feral newborns. Of _course_ these vampires with their in-tact shirts and neat hair would be willing to listen to Peter’s defenses.

Witnessing the happy visions only makes Jasper feel… off. He doesn’t hate that Peter is happy, but he thinks maybe he envies the man. After all, Peter got out. Peter is living free. And Peter has somehow found _love_ , as bizarre of a concept as that is.

Alice’s face comes to him more as he keeps his attention on Peter, and it’s both confusing as well as frustrating. This girl means nothing to him, but it’s as if his visions are begging him to pay closer attention, and to reconsider his stance.

He doesn’t _want_ to know more about her, but he can’t help it when suddenly he’s digging around his mind, praying for more glimpses of her. Of _them_. His voice always sounds strange in these visions, as if it’s someone else entirely speaking through his body.

He watches a vision where Peter tells Charlotte he loves her, and seconds later Alice is in his mind, and he can’t tell what is happening but he feels _warm_ and _light_ and she’s saying those three words, and Jasper is so overwhelmed by how visceral the vision is that when he comes back to his reality he leaves his dilapidated room in the farmhouse and runs.

He doesn’t get far before he sinks to his knees and replays the vision over and over and over again in his mind until her words (“ _I love you_ ”) are cemented in his mind forever.

That’s the night that Alice turns from no one to everything.

* * *

Leaving isn’t an option.

It’s something that Jasper knows in his bones, and not just because his visions haven’t provided him an easy way out. This is the life Jasper knows. Anything beyond it—anything that stretches far beyond lands where just a simple mention of his name strikes fear—is something so foreign that Jasper doesn’t even _want_ to go beyond that.

Because despite the death and the carnage and the blood, in the South it is safe for him. In the South his name means something. He has power. He has land. He has Maria at his side ensuring it all remains _theirs_. It is the place he has spent his first century killing and feeding and ruling. To give up the place of power he holds firmly with both hands here would be foolish.

Maria would never let him leave, either.

Jasper’s daydreams in which he kills Maria and runs happen with more frequency now. After all, it would be the quickest way out of this life. But with Maria out of the picture, he has no backup plan. Which is not an idea that _should_ frighten him—he can see the fucking future, for heavens sake—but it does, and his fear is as irrational as it is stubborn.

If he tries to leave and ends up lost and alone and without purpose, he knows that he’d be able to return to Monterrey and to Maria, and that she’d take him back in half of a human’s heartbeat.

So, he doesn’t want to kill her, but he doesn’t see a way out without doing so. And for years, Jasper is stuck.

The mountains become theirs in the meantime. One of the older covens that inhabits the land surrounding the Gulf of California flee with little more than a skirmish slashing half their numbers, and suddenly Maria controls northern Mexico from coast to coast.

It’s enough to sate her for the moment, but Jasper is still restless.

It’s made worse by the visions of Alice that he gets, and it’s made _even_ worse by the snippets of other strangers he starts to get. The only thing all of these vampires have in common is their golden eyes and their impeccably clean clothes. They don’t even look like any of their kind, and Jasper wonders if these are even vampires he’s seeing.

The visions he gets of the redhead and the older blond man hunting none other than _wildlife_ confirm two things for Jasper. That yes, they’re vampires of a sort, and that nothing could ever tempt him into stooping to eating vermin over humans.

He contemplates a set up. It wouldn’t be hard to manipulate some decisions so that he and Maria run headlong into an enemy army. But even when Jasper entertains these ideas they always backfire. Their reputation precedes them, meaning that even the most dignified, prideful covens will run if Maria and Jasper cross their paths.

He contemplates faking his death but that’s a laughable idea. There’s no way any newborn would be able to take him out. Maria knows he’s too strong to allow such a thing. Even if his visions weren’t in the picture, killing Jasper would be quite a feat.

He contemplates simply talking to her about it. Telling her that he needs to go. Perhaps spin a tale or two about how his visions show that it has to be done, whether he’s aware of the reasoning or not. Some lie to hold her over for a few decades. This is the path that provides him with the highest chance of success, but it’s also the most risky.

Jasper knows that Maria covets him almost as fiercely as she does Monterrey. Of course, she would never choose between the two—after all, in her world, one’s existence in her life guarantee’s the other’s—but he has a feeling that Maria will not let him go without not just a fight, but not without some sort of ulterior motive.

He reminds himself that although he can see the future, sometimes Maria is still hard to predict. He will not die because he underestimates her. That’s not in the cards.

He’s days away from his decision (he’s considering telling her that he’ll be back; as if his journey up north would ever be a temporary thing) when he receives a vision that suddenly makes him come alive with anger.

Maria is off with a trio of newborns, working on perfecting her maps now that the the Sierras are well and truly hers, when Jasper sees Peter traversing familiar ground. And he instantly knows that he’s heading back down south. He doesn’t see the why, and he doesn’t see Charlotte either, so when Jasper turns due north and begins to run—he’ll be back before the newborns even notice he’s gone—the main question rattling through his head is a resounding _why_.

He’s about two hundred miles east of El Paso when he sees Peter on the horizon. Peter grinds his feel to a halt and waits, and by the time Jasper is close to him—close enough to see Peter in clothes cleaner than Jasper’s ever seen him in—he’s shouting.

“What are you doing here?!” He’s not just angry, Jasper realizes as he storms up to Peter, unable to understand why the fuck he came back to Texas of all places. Peter had gotten out. Peter was _free_ goddamnit. Jasper had given him the chance to turn and run and never come back and here he was: standing in Maria’s northern lands like he belongs there.

It makes him furious. But even more potent than Jasper’s anger is his confusion. His curiosity.

His _worry._

“Come on,” Peter calls toward Jasper, and he can’t help but freeze where he stands, his anger leaving him fully. “I’m getting you the hell out of here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jasper is shaking his head before Peter can begin to deliver his carefully planned out argument. There is no ‘getting out’ for Jasper. There is only lying his way to a bit of a break; a short reprieve from the repetitive nature of their ways for him to explore the north.

(He tells himself, day in and day out, that his desire to wander has nothing to do with Alice.)

“Yes, I am,” and he has the audacity to laugh, and Jasper can see how set in his decision Peter is. As far as he’s concerned, he isn’t leaving without him.

“Why?” He blurts out, because he has never once considered just… running. Disappearing into the night and leaving Maria and her lands and her battles and her armies. No cover up. No attempt at a carefully-constructed lie. Just fleeing.

His very existence is tied up so intricately with these things. Without her lands where does he go? Without the battles what does he do? Without the army, what purpose does he have?

He’s terrified at the prospect.

“Because, you deserve more than this,” Peter waves his hand, gesturing toward Mexico. “Because I wouldn’t still be alive without you. Because you’re my friend.”

“I don’t understand.” And he doesn’t.

“Jasper,” and Peter is growing more uneasy as the time passes. “Come on. Charlotte is waiting for me. For _us_.”

Jasper considers assuring Peter and telling him that Maria is nearly a thousand miles away right now, busy marveling over her hard-fought and well-earned lands. That even if he were to up and disappear it would be weeks before she knew about it.

The reality is that people’s fear of these lands have made it the safest place to wander currently. As long as you time it right.

“Look,” Peter demands, referring to Jasper’s ability that he knows little about, but understands its power, “look and see if it will be alright. Because it will, alright?”

Jasper doesn’t want to look, and truly he doesn’t mean to. But a vision crawls its way into his mind anyways, and Alice is smiling up at him, and Jasper can hear the sound of his own laughter, and there are more there; the others that Jasper sees rarely and knows little of. He sees her smile and he _feels_ a strange comfort and when he returns to the present he knows what choice he’s going to make.

He doesn’t even check to see what Maria’s reaction will be—he knows that vision will come to him in time, and eventually he’ll see the hell that he’s in for when she figures out he’s defected—instead he rifles through his visions of Alice, and when he takes one step forward, toward Peter, toward the North, he begins the second part of his second life.

* * *

They are safe to run wherever Peter leads them for the first several weeks. Jasper informs the mated pair that even once Maria finds out he’s gone, she won’t just up and leave. And by the time she even considers going after him his trail will be long gone.

They’re safe from her wrath for at least the time being, and it gives them time to pick an area and settle in for a little.

Peter breaks into a county library and steals a map for him one night, and Jasper is grateful as he pours over the space where they made their escape, leading all the way up to where they’ve come to rest, nestled in a city between lakes where snow falls often and the lakes are frozen over.

It’s easier to feed than Jasper thought possible. Humans lying in streets and freezing to death are hardly his number one choice, but they’re easy prey, and when he disposes of their bodies in the lake or beneath trash underneath a highway overpass, he can see in his mind that their deaths won’t be examined too closely.

He collects tips from Peter and Charlotte, and although he hates the idea of having to hold his breath for any length of time, it does help with his thirst when they’re forced too close to swatch of wandering humans.

It’s bizarre, wandering amongst the humans as if they are humans themselves. Jasper has spent so long away from human society that for the first few weeks he’s convinced that every time eyes fall upon him they are seeing right through him. He quickly learns that they can’t tell he’s any different to them.

Peter shocks him with the information that their appearance apparently _attracts_ the humans, in more than one way. And when a drunken woman stumbles his way one night, grabbing his hand and leaning him into an alley giggling, its the freshest meal he’s had in months.

Charlotte thanks him for the elegant coat he delivers to her that night, Peter is pleased with the money he finds in the wallet, and for a little while Jasper feels content.

But eventually they have to move on, and Jasper knows that while wandering the city has been helpful in teaching him ways to survive outside of a war zone, he knows that people are starting to take note that others have disappeared, and bodies have piled up a bit too high.

He keeps the map tucked into a coat he peeled off of one of his victims when they move on, and feels strange to own something small that isn’t land or a reputation. It’s different, but he thinks it’s nice.

Peter explains, as they travel, that although the North knows peace, vampires still exist up here and can be quite territorial. Charlotte shudders when Peter recalls a coven in Manhattan that drove the pair away (Jasper wonders if they’d still be alive if it weren’t for their experience down south) and when they wander across a frozen river, Jasper lets his mind wander to his visions of Alice and the other strange golden-eyed vampires he knows so little about.

There’s one night when they stumble across a campsite that they pause for a small period of time. Four humans sleeping soundly in their tents die without much fanfare, and by the time their bodies are drained and Peter has arranged the campsite to make it look like a wild animal attack (“It’s apparently the easiest way to cover it up,” Peter tells him) Charlotte has sat herself across from the campfire, still burning away in the night.

She hums as she holds her hands out to the fire, and Jasper finds himself uncomfortable as he watches her fingers dangling so closely to the flame. He stays a safe distance away and doesn’t miss the look Peter shoots him before he goes to sit by his mate.

“C’mon, Major,” he beckons good-naturedly, and Jasper slowly wanders forward, “come talk to us.”

Jasper tentatively sits himself on an overturned tree. It’s still a safe distance from the fire, but Peter and Charlotte can at least see him from where he sits.

“What do you see now?” Peter encourages, nodding. “The South is behind you. Maria is still in Monterrey. What’s next for you?”

“I don’t know.”

There’s a small period of silence before Charlotte speaks up. “How do you not know?” And when she sounds genuinely confused, Jasper realizes she doesn’t understand the full extent of his ability.

“I’m not omniscient,” he mutters quietly, eyes finding the small flame and watching as it slowly grows. Charlotte or Peter must have fed the fire while Jasper was distracted and finishing up his meal, because it’s growing bigger and brighter as the minutes pass. “I only see outcomes of decisions. The future changes constantly.”

“So you can see the results of choices people make?”

He nods. “Typically.”

“So, what now?” Peter asks again, leaning back on his hands. “What lies ahead for you?”

Jasper is quiet for a long time.

The truth is that he doesn’t know. He has never once imagined he’d actually get out of Monterrey and be set on a path that wasn’t entirely involved in territorial disputes and training newborn vampires for eternity. Even his visions of Alice were just something to pass his time with. They were never supposed to be a possibility.

Jasper never thought those moments—so many stored and locked away in his mind—would be attainable.

He considers ignoring the question, but he’s tired. And what Peter and Charlotte are offering him right now is a chance to finally open up. To live life a little bit less inside of his head.

And maybe they can help him figure out why the hell he’s been seeing visions of this girl for the past several decades.

So he tells them.

About the girl who started appearing in his head before Peter was even among them. About her strange golden eyes and the odd flashes of futures he’s received where he doesn’t even recognize himself.

He keeps the more intimate visions to himself, of course. The ones where his mouth is nestled between her thighs, the ones where she gasps and moans and comes apart as his touch, the ones where he shakes as she pleasures him.

But it’s difficult to speak about her without giving away the nature of these visions he’s been having. It’s obvious that they’re tender, romantic moments, and confessing this should embarrass him but it doesn’t. It actually feels good to talk about it. He feels a little more sane and a little less unhinged. Jasper feels like talking about her makes her feel more real.

“What’s her name?” Charlotte asks after Jasper finishes describing what she looks like. She’s smiling at him when he looks up and meets her eyes. “It’s clear that you love her.”

“I don’t know her,” his words sound dumb, but they’re the truth.

Charlotte laughs and Peter snorts. “Sure, Major. What’s her name though?”

Jasper swallows the lump in his throat and speaks her name for only the second time ever. “Alice.”

* * *

At first, Charlotte and Peter and convinced they’re going to help Jasper find Alice. They pick his brain for a few weeks, trying to see if he’s received any visions that would perhaps give away the type of terrain or environment they’re occupying. Perhaps she’s somewhere waiting for him. Jasper’s gift might be unheard of but there’s a chance this girl has something similar, something that calls her to him as much as he’s been drawn toward her this past many years.

Jasper shakes his head for the umpteenth time as he assures them that he has no clue where to start looking.

But it’s when they start looking that the visions come more frequently. So frequently, in fact, that there are times that they have to pause and wait while Jasper pulls himself back out of the future. It’s an odd thing, for a vision to take his attention away fully, and it leaves him restless and irritable. Peter and Charlotte are quick to assure him that he’s safe with them. But his absences from the present, even if they’re only a few seconds at a time, are dangerous _and_ uncomfortable.

It’s not long after they begin looking (it’s only been a handful of months) that he receives a vision and learns the name ‘Cullen’. He’s the older blond man with a gentle face that Jasper has seen in his visions, always on the peripheral. He’s typically wearing some sort of white coat, and this one happens to have the name ‘Dr. Cullen’ stitched into the front.

He relays the information to Peter and Charlotte, his words filling space in the dead quiet of the early morning, and the two spend the rest of the day trying to come up with reasons a strange-eyed vampires would be wearing a doctors coat.

“It’s probably a cover,” Peter shrugs. “Whoever that guy is probably found an easy, discreet way to find a meal or three.”

That’s when Jasper realizes he has to fill them in on the fact that he’s been seeing visions of this man, and other nameless coven mates, for years now.

It’s when Jasper lets the whole animal-eating fact drop that the conversation turns from speculating to downright amused. He finds himself laughing right along with them, equally baffled by the odd diet.

What follows is a week-long discussion on whether or not the diet has anything to do with the eye color, and when Peter is fully determined to give it a try (“just to _see_ , alright?”) Jasper gets the vision of Peter with eyes closer to orange than red and informs the man that yes, his theory is right and no, he doesn’t have to do it if he doesn’t want to.

Peter is grateful for that, and laughs as he shakes his head at the idea of trying animal blood for fun.

* * *

As the days pass, Jasper slowly learns the names of the rest of the golden-eyed group. Alice is closest with the redheaded boy, Edward. And although Jasper can’t tell what it is, he knows that Edward is gifted somehow. In his visions he can tell that, in whatever strange version of a future he’s witnessing, this Edward is his biggest ally somehow.

It’s important information. He feels it in his bones. So vital that it makes everything else he learns about the large coven just minor details. There is Esme, the older woman with a heart-shaped face whom Jasper shares meaningful conversation with. There is Emmett, the large, curly-haired main, that Jasper shares jokes and laughter with.

Rosalie is beautiful and standoffish, but her refusal to back down to or fear Jasper is something he admires. After all, he knows his scars aren’t a welcoming characteristic. Carlisle is quiet but wise, and Jasper sees acceptance in the older man’s gaze on nights where they sit and talk.

He doesn’t understand the full context of these visions. He only knows that they are tied to Alice somehow, and in turn, he is tied to them. He knows that what he’s seeing are glimpses of what these people will one day mean to him, but these visions are passing flickers as Jasper tries and tries to un- and re-fold the images of Alice in his mind.

He often thinks of Charlotte’s words. “ _It’s clear that you love her._ ” Jasper wonders if he does. He wouldn’t exactly know for sure, since these circumstances—the ones that made Alice appear in his future in the first place—make little sense.

After several years of their comfortable companionship, Jasper realizes with keen disappointment that if he is to find Alice he has to leave Peter and Charlotte behind.

This strange golden-eyed coven is his ticket to Alice. He knows it unflinchingly. And as he watches Alice laugh and joke and cozy up to this coven he realizes that these people—the vampires that follow the lead of Carlisle Cullen—are as close to a family to Alice as their kind can get.

He doesn’t want to leave his companions behind, but he sees the conversation and the tense atmosphere it creates if he mentions this to them: they’ve had enough run-ins with covens in their years on their own. Peter won’t put Charlotte in any situation that he thinks might harm her, and they are wary of seeking out vampires in general, let alone a group of one as big as the Cullen coven appear to be.

It’s one thing to help Jasper find, what they’re only assuming is, his mate. It’s a separate mission entirely to help them seek out a unknown coven of six vampires. He knows they won’t want to, and he won’t even put the question past him.

He does what he’s good at, and he lies. It’s a kind one, and he lets them down easy. He tells them both that he thinks he knows where Alice is, but he doesn’t want to frighten her away with the three of them.

Peter and Charlotte don’t want to leave him to wander off on his own, but they understand with sympathetic nods and sad smiles. Jasper promises not to be a stranger, and tells them he’ll try and track them down if he needs them.

They cross a mountain range together the night before they part, and when they finally split off, Peter and Charlotte heading west and Jasper heading further north, they exchange quick nods, and that is that.

He still has no clue what he’s going to do when he finds them. After all, Jasper can see in his mind that Alice will be easier to win over. It’s the coven she’s a part of that will be the harder sell. Thankfully, the Cullens appear to reside in settings that rarely change, Meaning that once they take up residence in a town, they linger.

They shouldn’t be very hard to find.

And when visions bloom across his mind, Jasper takes off, a feeling of hope fueling his every step as he runs further and further north.

* * *

He almost turns and leaves the area—after all, the golden-eyed vampires he is about to encounter aren’t the _right_ ones—but he knows he is heading in the right direction. His visions have shown him this much, and he has never not trusted in them to lead him where he needs to go.

They are reluctant to speak with him, at first, a trio of blonde women taking defensive stances toward where he stands at the edge of the tree line. He holds his hands up before him, as if placating their distrust, but when an olive-skinned man brushes past them, staring at Jasper with wonder in his eyes, Jasper can’t help but wonder if he’s made a mistake or not.

Eleazar, the man introduces himself swiftly, reveals both of their gifts in one breath, and Jasper is suddenly the defensive one, crouching low and backing away as the man walks forward, swiftly apologizing for forgoing his manners.

“Please,” he speaks, and Jasper detects an old, almost-forgotten accent on his tongue, “I mean no harm. My gift is only detection, I swear. Your intent is your own as I can only see abilities.” There is a tense pause as a dark-haired woman approaches Eleazar and grabs his elbow tightly. “Something brought you to us, and I’d like to help.”

There is a quick argument with that statement, but it doesn’t last long and suddenly Jasper is standing in a giant wooden house feeling ill at ease. It’s dangerous for these people to know about his gift, but there is nothing he can do now, except to trudge onward.

“I’m looking for Carlisle Cullen,” Jasper speaks the name with a familiarity he really has no business possessing, and when they all react to it, Jasper feels that spark of hope ignite a tiny flame within him. “I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction.”

“You’re acquainted with Carlisle?” The woman who introduced herself as Tanya speaks, her eyes calculating as she observes Jasper closely.

“Not yet,” and it’s the truth, “Just with a member of their coven.” And that might be a lie, but it doesn’t _feel_ like one.

He then describes Alice vaguely, but none of them seem to have any idea who she is.

“Of course, Carlisle has many, _many_ friends,” Eleazar speaks, and it feels like a joke that Jasper doesn’t fully understand, “It’s likely she’s amongst that number.”

“Is that what you are?” Jasper replies, still uncomfortable in the home, but at least he’s getting somewhere. “Friends with Carlisle Cullen?”

“Old, old friends.” Eleazar smiles.

Jasper leaves later that night with more than what he’d hoped for when he encountered this first wildlife-drinking group. (Yes, they’d confirmed, amused, when he asked if they truly existed on a diet of animal blood alone.) Not only have they pointed Jasper in right direction, but Tanya had escaped somewhere that she wouldn’t be overheard in order to ‘call’ Carlisle herself.

As far as Jasper understands their conversation had been short, but Carlisle Cullen is curious to meet the ex-soldier. They give Jasper a mailing address, but after unfolding his old map, Irina helpfully marks the approximate location on it for him. Not before asking him if he could read street signs, forcing a tick of annoyance out of him.

He’s only been living up north for about a decade now, but he’s not entirely unaware how things fully work up in this odd, modern world.

They wish him luck, and Jasper is off again.

* * *

He runs for two days. Heading back the way he came he feels exhilaration burst through his bones and push him faster and faster as he treks back east. This is it, he realizes as visions strike him one after the other after the other.

One particular one sticks with him.

“ _How long will you be gone?” Alice asks him with a pout, wrapped up tight in his embrace from where he holds her against him. It looks like they’re on a bed, and there is so much fabric on it it’s amusing_.

_“Hm, a day or two at most,” he hums against her head, pressing a kiss to her temple. “It depends on whether Emmett finds his grizzly or not.”_

_“Can’t you just tell him where to find one?”_

_“That takes all the fun out of it,” he exhales a laugh, and when his breath causes her hair to blow, tickling at her ear, she giggles, turning in his arms._

_Somehow, the atmosphere changes, and he finds himself very distracted with her body pressed up against his. “I suppose you should give me a proper goodbye then,” she purrs up at him, leaning close._

_“Of course,” and he’s kissing her and everything feels perfect and right and whole._

He wants to speak out loud in that moment, but he keeps his words to himself.

 _I’m on my way,_ he wants to say. _I’ll be there soon, Alice._

And he’s so exited by the prospect of having this girl in his life, in his arms, in a _bed_ , that he runs headlong into the unknown.

* * *

When he rounds the corner and sees the white-paneled house, Jasper immediately knows something is wrong.

The house doesn’t look right. Not that it’s _wrong._ It’s just that it’s unfamiliar in a way that makes his stomach turn to lead.

On the front step, Carlisle Cullen stands there under the moonlight, waiting for Jasper’s arrival. At his sides are Edward, who watches him with a careful eye, and Emmett, who is eyeing his scars with trepidation.

Jasper looks toward his immediate future and sees Esme and Rosalie. But there is no Alice.

Alice isn’t there.

He drags his feet forward anyways, pushing the visions aside because _no_. No they can’t be real. It can’t be true. Alice is supposed to be here, with them. Even Eleazar and Tanya’s words aren’t comforting to him now. Because suddenly Jasper knows that Alice isn’t here and Alice _hasn’t_ been here.

No part of this house or this scene or this place are familiar to him at all.

“You must be Jasper,” Carlisle calls toward him warmly, and it pulls Jasper back out of his head for long enough to properly acknowledge the three men. Emmett has stepped ahead of Carlisle slightly and Edward’s mouth is wide open as he stares at Jasper. “My name is Carlisle. I hear you’ve been searching for me.”

“Alice,” his mouth feels dry as he forces her name out. “Where is Alice?”

There is confusion on Carlisle’s kind face, and Jasper nearly drops to his knees, the grief so strong it’s overwhelming.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know an Alice.”

And that sentence twists every vision in Jasper’s mind into a wretched, horrific thing.

The first vision he gets sends him crashing to his knees.

“ _Get up,” a man growls down at a small form, curled in on itself, “we’re moving on.” The dark form doesn’t immediately move, so the man kicks it so hard that Jasper wants to flinch. “Get UP!”_

_When Alice stands up on shaking feet, her dark eyes wide and hollow, Jasper feels sick with fury._

_The man sneers at her and she cowers as he approaches. He grabs her by the back of the neck and thrusts her forward, forcing her to move. “Get a move on, brat.”_

_The shirt she wears is in tatters and several sizes too big. It shifts and hangs off of her shoulder as she scurries forward, and the scars littering her neck and collar bones stick out harshly against her frail, too-thin frame._

Jasper knows that they’re discussing him. That Emmett has moved forward off of the porch toward him and that Edward is stuck, frozen, staring at where Jasper has collapsed on his hands and knees, visions seizing him as he realizes that all hope is lost. Carlisle is calling his name out, but Jasper can’t think of a single goddamn thing to say.

The only reason he was here was to find Alice. And Alice isn’t here. And Alice was never here to begin with, and now every vision he’s every gotten of her sends him spiraling into the depths of his own confusion.

The old visions are nothing but a memory, and Jasper can’t figure out where things went so wrong.

* * *

He hears Edward describe it quietly to the two men as they contemplate, out-loud, what to do.

“It’s glimpses of people. There’s a girl. He has… they’re almost like memories, but not quite. I think they’re premonitions of sorts.”

Jasper comes back into his body when he hears that, flying onto his feet and backing up quickly, growls tearing out of his body.

 _Stay OUT of my HEAD_ , he demands in horror, as he realizes that Edward is seeing directly into his mind.

“It’s easier said than done,” Edward is still on the porch and has taken a low stance himself. It’s a tense standoff until Carlisle speaks up again.

“I’m sorry,” and he truly sounds apologetic, despite having nothing to truly apologize for. “I wish I knew this girl.”

“He thought she was with us. He’s confused.”

“Edward,” Carlisle turns toward the boy and lifts a hand, “let him speak.”

“Why?” And Edward has shaken off his shock fully now. Jasper’s reaction has made him more guarded, and he now regards Jasper with distrustful eyes. “He knows all of us already. More about us than I can learn about him.”

“You read minds?” It sounds accusatory, but really Jasper is so fucking shocked that he can’t help the automatic defensiveness. He used to be able to count on one hand the amount of people who knew about his gift. And it’s only taken days for that number to quadruple.

“You see the future?” Edward half-shrugs, his arms folded over his chest.

Emmett finally groans, and it’s such an unexpected reply that all the men turn to stare at the giant man. “Oh great, another psychic. Perfect. Just what this house needs.” And somehow that’s the thing that breaks a majority of the tension, making it so that they all find themselves inside of the house minutes later.

He doesn’t want to have to relay his story to all of these strangers. Strangers who aren’t exactly strangers, he realizes as he looks at all of them. Deep down it’s weird because he _knows_ these people. After so many years of seeing glimpses and snippets of them in his mind, it feels weird to have them all in front of him, as real presences now. It feels even weirder knowing that everything he knows about them he learned without their permission.

He knows so much, and they only know what they can infer from his appearance.

Rosalie is glaring and Edward is still on edge. He doesn’t fault them for it.

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, hands clasped behind his back as he meets the eyes of everyone in the room. “I did not intend on intruding the way I’ve done so today. While my gift is useful it’s rarely wrong. I made plans to visit, unaware that the person I was seeking wasn’t among you.” He wants to patch up this conversation and flee, but something in his mind (not his visions, for once) is telling him that simply walking out of this house and never looking back might be an impossibility. “While I can’t be sure how I was misled, its become clear to me that coming here was a mistake, and I’m genuinely sorry for causing you any grief or worry.”

His apology is awkward, and he is so out of practice with using his words that he isn’t entirely sure how to make a graceful exit. He feels so foolish. The emotional whiplash from being so certain he was hours away from meeting the woman he’s been dreaming about for so long to having that inevitable reality ripped out of his grasp has left him reeling.

And the visions he’s been getting of Alice ever since he arrived are vile enough that he wants to get out of here and find her _truly_.

_She stares up at the moon with wide, blank eyes. Her knees are pulled up to her chest and her tiny arms are wrapped around her bony, scarred knees. She almost looks like she belongs in the south. But the scars are placed all wrong. They aren’t from combat, Jasper knows, these are purposefully placed in delicate, soft parts. These are marks from torture, overlapping and awful._

_Her dark, tired eyes stare at the moon, and she sighs softly. Jasper can only imagine what she’s thinking of._

Alice is not with these people. And Jasper does not see a future in which he can exist here without her. His departure needs to happen soon, and he needs to find Alice _now_.

“How long have you been seeing us?” Esme finally speaks up. She’s been hidden behind Emmett’s massive bulk for the duration of this meeting, for obvious reasons. The Cullens may not know who he is exactly, but it’s easy to guess just by looking at him where he comes from and how he got his scars.

“For many years, ma’am.”

She smiles at him from her spot in the corner of the room. “Then perhaps coming here wasn’t a mistake, Jasper.”

* * *

He agrees to stay for a little while. Whether their version of a ‘little while’ is the same as his, has yet to be seen, but Jasper doesn’t picture himself lingering around the Cullen residence for too long. After all, the one rule they’d given him was that they requested he hunt outside of city limits. Thankfully he’d fed after he’d left Alaska, but he knows that within the next day or three he’ll need to wander off and take care of business.

After all, the Cullens have human neighbors. Not too close by, but close enough that if he focuses Jasper can hear the sound of children playing, echoing through the open windows of the white house.

Edward finds him, perched in one of the windows during mid-day, watching as the sun glitters off of his skin, the reflection dancing rainbows across the ornaments hung just outside the window.

“She’s in trouble,” Edward comments quietly. “Your girl. Alice.”

Jasper doesn’t want to nod, but it’s the truth. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Maybe those early visions are still viable. Just further away.”

He’s considered that. “I don’t know.”

“What will you do now?”

“Find her,” he responds, as if it’s a reflex. “I have to.”

Edward nods. “We can help.”

But Jasper is shaking his head before Edward’s even verbalized the offer. “I can’t ask that of you. Of any of you.”

“Your visions have showed you for years now that you’re meant to be part of this family,” Edward says it like its obvious and it makes Jasper viscerally uncomfortable. The mention of ‘family’ unsettles him and he doesn’t enjoy the way it makes him feel. “It’s true, no matter how much you might deny it. And if I couldn’t see it the way I do, I doubt I’d believe it, too.”

Jasper looks over at the boy and finds himself frowning at his smirk. “I don’t know what’s so funny about this.”

“You realize you _do_ have a reputation up here, right?”

Jasper’s stomach sinks at that, and Edward quickly continues.

“Not by name, of course. But people know about the wars. I’m sure the only reason the Volturi haven’t stepped in yet is because the humans haven’t caught on. But I know they’re watching.”

“Why offer to help me, then? Knowing what I am. Knowing the danger my presence brings.”

“Because last night one of the tyrants of the South walked through a custom-designed, hand-carved oak door to apologize for being upset that his mate isn’t here.” Edward raises an eyebrow and Jasper feels his frown morph into a glare. “And besides, Esme likes you.”

“When I find the man who has her you know what I’m going to do, right?” Jasper’s words are cold. “I’ll do what I always do. Kill him.” He eyes Edward’s polo-sweater combo and bites back a scoff. “I don’t think our lifestyles are very compatible.”

“Yet.” Edward fixes him with a knowing look as he walks back out of the room, and Jasper hates how in a way, he’s right.

* * *

The day before Jasper decides he’s going to leave, Rosalie approaches him.

He immediately knows she’s snuck off to do this. After all, Emmett hardly lets her out of his sight when Jasper is around; and he understands, really.

“What are your plans?” She demands to know, and with the ferocity of her look, and the power and confidence in her stance, Jasper is suddenly reminded of Maria. “After you find this girl, what do you plan on doing?”

“I—” Jasper’s taken off guard by the question, and hates it when he realizes he doesn’t have a good answer for her. “I’m going to save her.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Rosalie’s words are a low growl, and Jasper knows she’s keeping her voice down only so her mate doesn’t come running. Jasper is sure that he can talk Emmett down, but he doesn’t want to have to fight in their strangely fragile house if he can help it. “When you’ve killed this man and rescued this girl, what are you going to do with her?”

“I’m not going to do anything _with_ her, I—”

“You what? Will take over as her keeper? So she can trade one jailer for another?” Jasper opens his mouth to deny it but Rosalie’s words are quick. “Quiet. Edward has already explained the situation to me. The girl is in trouble and needs to be helped. I understand that. But don’t you dare assume you have some claim on her just because you do one good thing in your life.” She’s gotten dangerously close to him as she talks, and when she lifts her finger to point it at him, Jasper has to take a step back.

Silently he calls for Edward in his mind. He doesn’t want to have to defend himself against this woman or her projected fury any longer.

“I don’t care how many people you’ve killed, how much land you’ve conquered, or how many vampires you’ve torn to shreds. Nothing will keep me from destroying you if I find out you force this girl into your company against her will.”

“Rosalie,” Edward is standing on the edge of the room, calling her attention away from Jasper.

She hisses at the boy but turns and shoots Jasper one final glare before disappearing from the room.

The following morning he is set to leave. It is not a surprise when Emmett and Edward insist on coming along. Jasper tries not to watch as they say their temporary goodbyes (even if he still receives visions of each moment regardless.) It’s strange, how easy his visions of them come to him now. And maybe there is some truth to Edwards words, that even without Alice they are meant to be in each others lives.

Jasper thinks that without Alice, it doesn’t matter much, and thankfully Edward doesn’t comment on that specific thought.

As they take off into the overcast morning, Rosalie’s words stick to his mind like glue.

* * *

Finding them is proving to be… difficult.

There are three of them, including Alice. The man wears his long blond hair tied in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, and the woman has hair the color of fire, wild and bright. Watching the three of them interact makes him see red, but he knows it’s important to keep them in his sights.

_The woman stands above Alice, wrapping some sort of filthy scarf around Alice’s neck, glaring down at the girl as if she feels disgusted that she even needs to be this close. “Don’t mess it up this time,” the woman growls, thrusting the cardboard sign into Alice’s hands._

_They’re in a city—Jasper can see that much—and the streetlights are mostly burnt out on their part of the street. The redhead disappears into the darkness and Alice wanders toward the only lit patch of sidewalk before sitting._

_It isn’t long before an older couple stumbles upon the girl, sitting on the cold pavement, sign in her lap as she stares out into the darkness. The humans stare at her, uneasy at her stillness, but they pause, and the woman asks her where her parents are. The offer to help comes hesitantly, but it does come. The conversation that takes place is fuzzy, but seconds after Alice is letting the humans lead her away, their fate is sealed._

_Alice’s captors feed and steal happily, and Alice receives a punch to the head when she stares a second too long after the blond man wipes blood from his chin._

_They eventually drop their meals, and Alice is left to clean up the mess._

It feels wrong to have Edward at his side, witnessing each and every vision that creeps across Jasper’s mind. There is a privacy that is being invaded, and not just his own. Edward can help himself to any of Jasper’s own thoughts if he’d like. Jasper knows that if the boy finds something in his head he doesn’t like, that’s his own problem.

It’s when Edward eavesdrops on these visions of Alice, watching her misery, that Jasper feels a fierce protectiveness rise up in him. But Edward rarely comments on the glances into the future that he sees unfold in Jasper’s mind. Occasionally he’ll turn to Emmett and make a comment; it usually springs a conversation about some of the architecture or landmarks that Jasper has been catching glimpses of.

After the fourth day Jasper finds himself… not quite happy exactly, but _relieved_ that the two Cullen boys have accompanied him on his mission. Their help is so vital that it only takes that long for Edward to recognize the stairs of a museum in Philadelphia in Jasper’s most recent vision, and they take off further south, finally wandering out of the region called ‘New England’ and toward the Pennsylvania city.

Before they reach Philadelphia, Edward and Emmett excuse themselves to hunt, and Jasper decides that its best for him to feed while the two self-proclaimed ‘vegetarians’ are absent. He knows they disapprove his diet, but he refuses to even considering their repulsive alternative.

Humans _are_ much easier to find than animals. Even deep in the forest. It doesn’t take long for Jasper to find a lone hiker, enjoy a filling meal, and hide the body. While he waits for his companions to finish their pursuit of a few fleeing doe, he takes out his old, worn map.

He can’t help it when his eyes flutter down to the southern portion of the map.

Monterrey is still Maria’s—a part of Jasper suspects it might always be, even if he never returns—but he knows that a coven in Tijuana has begun to push back against her hold on the Gulf of California. It might be a few years before she truly loses that land, but Jasper sees her fury in his mind and has to force the visions of her vicious frustrations (and the way she takes it out on her next crop of newborns) out of his head.

He doesn’t want to look into Alice’s future, but the impulse to do it is hard to ignore. The space she occupies in his head gets poked at regularly. Muscle memory, almost, when his attention flickers to thoughts of her and his mind pulls a vision forth. Her presence in his mind has been a source of unmitigated comfort for over one hundred years.

Well. It used to be.

Now, Jasper’s visions of Alice leave him feeling angry, frustrated, and hollow. With every mark that is inflicted on her, every meal she’s deprived of, every harsh word that is flung her way, Jasper daydreams up new ways to kill her captors.

His old visions of her don’t feel right as memories. But that’s all they are now. Memories of a future he was _supposed_ to have. A future that they were supposed to share. _Together_.

_“Your visions have showed you for years now that you’re meant to be part of this family.”_

Edwards words play through his mind and Jasper has to physically shake the sentiment from his thoughts. Because it’s… well. He will admit that it means something. But it’s not quite right.

Alice is meant to be a part of this family. Jasper is meant to be with Alice. So while he’s a part of the equation, he isn’t the connecting piece, and that has always been a fact in his head.

His eyes wander to the word ‘Philadelphia’ and he prays to whatever gods are out there that he’ll find her there.

* * *

Something is off.

They’ve been on this journey for only six days, and Jasper _knows_ that they’re close. But whenever they begin to head toward where they know Jasper has seen them, its as if their arrival is anticipated and the pair that keep Alice captive are constantly just out of reach.

Frustrating isn’t even the proper word to describe it.

After three days of this ridiculous cat and mouse game, Jasper grinds his feet to a halt, cracking the pavement beneath his feet as he forces his run to stop.

“They know we’re coming,” he growls as Edward turns back toward him and Emmett catches up. It’s late at night, and there are only a few hours left before the sun rises. Jasper has seen that a disgustingly sunny day is coming for them, and he knows that without the cover of clouds or rain it will make finding them even harder in this giant city.

And he knows that if they don’t find them soon, or some up with an adequate enough plan, they’ll be gone from the city in days.

“Well,” Emmett huffs, and Jasper feels a little bit better that at least he isn’t the only one being driven to frustration by this wild chase. “We need to think of a better way of getting to them, then.”

“That’s obvious, Em,” Edward shoots his coven mate a wry look.

“I mean it! If they know we’re after them, they’ll keep running. What happens if we just _chill_ for a day or two?” He gestures to Jasper. “Can you figure that out?”

Jasper almost laughs when the vision floods him.

Because he doesn’t exactly know _why_ , but Emmett’s right. If they stop chasing the people who have Alice among them, then it will pique the blond man’s curiosity, and he’ll come searching for them.

And Jasper knows that once this guy decides to find the men, he’ll find them _quickly_.

They have no time to waste.

They flee to the outskirts of the city and rent a motel room for several days. It will only take two days for the man who has Alice to come looking, and Jasper will be waiting.

The location of the motel is convenient, chosen very specifically. It’s right by the highway overpass that leads out of the city, and Jasper knows that most of the buildings that surround the dilapidated motel are only full of humans during daylight hours. This means that whenever the man comes searching for them, when—not if, but _when_ —it turns into a fight, they’ll draw little attention.

Jasper watches as their vision solidifies.

_“James,” the redhead hisses, and Jasper can see her fury projected in her fierce expression. “It’s a bad idea. We should move on.”_

_The blonde man, James, grins at the angry woman. “C’mon Victoria. If they want to play a game, then we’ll play.” He gestures toward where Alice is curled up in the corner of the damp room they’re currently in, watching them carefully. Alice wordlessly stands and moves closer. Not quite close enough for him to grab at her, but close enough that he’s pleased with her proximity. “If you don’t come along, Mary-Alice and I will just have to see what the fuss is about ourselves.”_

_Victoria lunges, shoving the girl away roughly before turning toward her mate and hissing._

_Jasper watches as Alice simply lets herself fall. And when she lands on the ground—a crack in the wood floor beneath her—she just lies there, eyes finding the tiny window of the room, staring toward the moon._

“James,” Edward frowns, speaking the mans name as Jasper closes his eyes and counts to ten, trying to keep himself calm. “James and Victoria, that’s who we’re looking for,” he turns to Emmettwho is flicking through the channels on the ancient television as he speaks.

“They comin’ yet?” He asks, as if bored, and the sound of the channels changing rapidly are enough to distract Jasper from his own anger.

“Yes,” Jasper grinds his teeth together.

“Her full name is Mary-Alice,” Edward comments out loud, studying Jasper’s expression carefully as he speaks. “I didn’t know that.”

Neither did he.

But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that in only a matter of hours, James and Victoria will be in his reach.

And so will Alice.

* * *

It’s a rough time, staying in the hotel day and night. After several hours, Jasper’s struggling to keep his focus. The walls of the motel are just so goddamn thin, he can’t help but grow distracted by the sound of human hearts thumping away in the other rooms. He spends a solid hour mapping out different plans of attack in his mind, but runs out of things to do quickly.

Emmett is perfectly content to lie back on one of the double-beds, hands folded behind his head as he watches the television. Edward spends most of his time flipping through some books he found in one of the drawers, even taking time to call up Carlisle and update their coven on everything.

Carlisle had offered his own assistance up, but Jasper shook his head before Edward could reply. No. Any additional presences would skew this already-tentative future up even further. They had to stick to the plan, and that was final.

Eventually Emmett just starts… talking.

About nonsense at first. He wants to know whether Jasper has ever watched TV or not. Obviously not, Jasper scoffs with an eye roll. But Emmett is curious so he keeps talking, and asking questions; questions that Jasper only provides answers to every so often.

He learns a lot that day. Not that Jasper doesn’t already know enough about these two men, but as Emmett speaks, Jasper learns.

He learns that Carlisle changed all of them. That Edward was first, and then Esme, and then soon after Rosalie was changed, he followed.

He learns that they like being able to live amongst the humans, and that while pretending to be human isn’t the easiest thing in the world, it makes it possible for them to lead the lives they do.

He learns that the animal diet is somewhat of an acquired taste. That Carlisle has only bitten to change and that Rosalie has never tasted human blood _ever_.

He learns that slip-ups do happen, and sometimes they have to drop everything in the middle of the night and flee. He learns that other times they need to fake their own deaths and forge papers in order to make a clean getaway.

He learns that Carlisle saved all of them from certain death by turning them into vampires. He learns that Rosalie saved Emmett from a bear attack, and that without her he would have succumbed to his woulds and bled out on the forest floor.

“Not like its the same of your situation here,” Emmett shrugs, and his feet are now crossed, his shoes leaving dirt marks on the edge of the bed. “But the similarities are there, kind of. Rose saved me from that bear, and you’re going to get to save your girl from these bastards.”

Jasper hums. He’s at least entertained by Emmett’s constant chatter. It’s distracted him well enough that by the time the sun rises on their second day of waiting, Jasper’s shocked to realize his thirst is… not _lessened_ , but it’s easier to ignore the humans existing on the other side of a shared wall when someone is talking at you for hours on end.

“Can I make one request?”

Jasper raises an eyebrow as Emmett sits up on the bed.

“I know you’re a killing-machine and all, but at least let me get a couple of good shots in on the guy.”

The question is as amusing as it is inappropriate, but Jasper only scoffs and shakes his head and turns back toward the window, his eyes trained on the rising sun on the horizon.

“Emmett,” for a boy of seventeen, Edward sounds far too old as he scolds his so-called ‘brother.’

“He didn’t say no,” Emmett grins, and then he goes back to talking about both everything and nothing.

The hours slowly tick down, and when nightfall is upon them, Jasper closes his eyes and breathes.

Edward and Emmett are waiting on his signal, but it’s hard to know exactly _when_ to strike. He isn’t positive, but Jasper is fairly sure that either this James or Victoria have some sort of gift. It’s irritatingly hard to keep consistent tabs on them. It’s either that their decisions are being made with weak conviction or they’re changing their mind far too often, but pinpointing their exact time of attack isn’t going as smoothly as he expected.

It’s just before midnight when he opens his eyes.

“They want to talk,” Jasper speaks, and his feet are moving before he can help himself. He’s out the door in seconds but he keeps his pace slow enough that he won’t be leaving Edward and Emmett in the dust.

Jasper leads them to a dark, but wide-open area beneath the highway overpass, and that’s where they wait.

Minutes later, three vampires walk into view, materializing from the shadows, and Jasper has for force himself to keep his feet planted.

Now is not the time to attack. Not yet.

“You’ve been giving us a little trouble,” James calls out as they approach, and he’s grinning so wide that just the sight of it in real life and not just in his head, almost forces him to lunge.

But he has to be patient. So he lets his anger simmer.

On his right is Victoria. Her stance is low and she remains at James’ side as they continue slowly moving closer. With just one look at her Jasper can see how badly this woman wants to turn and run. Every muscle in her body is tensed; not to attack, but to flee. Her red eyes flicker from the three men she faces down, to every other area of their setting. Mapping out escape routes, if Jasper has to guess.

And Alice—oh, it’s his _Alice_.

She stands behind the both of them, eyes dark and wide as she peers between the two taller vampires, taking in the strangers before them. When her dark eyes lock onto his gaze, he hates that she flinches away.

A pain in his chest that he doesn’t have a word for, pulses. It _hurts_ to see her like this. The Alice in his visions that smiles and dances and kisses him, and this girl, this Mary-Alice that’s been held captive and harmed and dragged about… they’re the same person but simultaneously so different that its hard to look at her.

He knows that all of their eyes are on him now. With his scars displayed for all of them to see, he knows he looks dangerous.

“How so?” Edward finally speaks, replying to James’ remark.

“Don’t think we don’t know you haven’t been following us around,” James scoffs. “Subtlety isn’t your forte, it seems.”

Jasper hears Victoria growl softly, and he knows that at the first sign of aggression she’ll disappear like smoke in the wind, dragging James and Alice along with her.

He can’t have that.

“Alice,” he calls her name, and when her eyes widen even further, he holds her gaze, “are you alright?”

He knows the answer, but its the safest way for them to establish contact with her. She’s scared of them. Far more afraid of them then she is of her two compassions. Jasper wonders if maybe he should have considered that more seriously before this night; Alice’s attachment to these two isn’t _strong_ , but Jasper can see that if he isn’t careful she will run away from them, and back with James and Victoria willingly.

The idea is too painful to entertain.

Victoria’s low growl is an outright hiss now.

Even James lowers his stance, eyeing the newcomers with trepidation. “Mary-Alice,” he speaks to her without turning. “Tell me,” and Jasper can see the irritation bubbling up within James. “How do you know this man?”

Alice’s words spill out quickly as she panics. “I don’t!” She cries, and her voice is so scared suddenly, and Jasper worries that he’s gone about this the wrong way already. The sound of her voice fills him with both elation and dread, and Jasper almost doesn’t know how to react. “I don’t—I’ve never seen him before in my entire life, I swear I—”

Victoria turns her hiss toward Alice causing the smaller girl to flinch back, whimpering. “ _Lies!_ ”

“You chased us for days and for what?” James laughs, vaguely gesturing behind him. “To say hi to this thing? To what? Take her for yourself?”

The vision Jasper receives sums up the next few seconds of conversation.

_“We could make a trade,” James speaks, sounding amused with the proposal. “I don’t know what you can offer me for her. After all, I’ve made her into a useful little tool over the years. She’s very obedient; a star pupil most days. A bit dumb, but,” and then James reaches back and seizes her tiny wrist, yanking her forward as Alice cries out in pain, “she’s tiny. Easy to control. She knows her place and she’ll do whatever it is you request as long as its simple enough for her feeble brain to understand.”_

_He tosses her forward, and Alice lands on her hands and knees between the two groups, shaking like a leaf._

_“Please,” Alice’s voice shakes, and she’s talking to James and Victoria, “I’ll be good. I’ll be better. I promise.”_

_“See?” James rolls his eyes gesturing to her small, broken form. “Pitiful. But she’s useful.”_

Jasper returns to the present, and before James can open his mouth and speak the words Jasper has just witnessed, he lunges.

There’s a flurry of movement then, but Jasper isn’t just some angry, strong vampire, ready to fight.

He’s the fucking _Eye of the South_. The god of war. Master of battle and oracle of death.

He helped create and command the most successful and powerful army that Mexico had ever seen. He’s killed more vampires than these people have likely ever met. He’s not just the most dangerous weapon the world has ever seen, but he’s a man in love.

And combining those two just makes this so much worse.

It isn’t a fight. It’s a goddamn slaughter.

James is dead before Alice can gather the breath to scream, but scream she _does_ , and the noise causes them all to flinch—even Victoria, who is half of an arms length away from Jasper, buckles slightly under whatever feeling Alice has just struck them with—before they can understand the sensation.

Victoria is harder to grasp, but not by much. She doesn’t fight back until she realizes theres no escaping Jasper, and after a few scrambling seconds, her head is ripped from her body, and she is dead, too.

He doesn’t waste time dismembering their bodies and setting them alight, but when he turns back toward where Emmett and Edward are trying to speak to Alice, he fears that what he’s done—killing these two and freeing Alice from their company—isn’t enough.

“Hey,” Emmett’s voice is far too soft for a man his size, “it’s okay, it’s alright now. You’re safe. It’s okay.”

“Emmett,” it’s Edward’s hand that reaches out and grabs his giant arm, pulling him back. “Give her a minute.”

“What do you want?” She gasps the words out, and suddenly Jasper is so terrified that he physically stumbles backward, watching as both Emmett and Edward back away from the girl, too. He’s never felt fear like this, not since his early days in the south, when his first battles nearly took his head off and he quickly realized that it was kill or be killed.

And he’s chosen kill ever since.

“Just to help,” Edward is able to speak the words despite his horrified expression, and Jasper wishes he could see what the boy sees in his mind. But just as quickly as the fear has struck them, it vanishes and Jasper feels… nothing.

Because he knows, with a swift series of visions, that this wasn’t enough. That killing James and Victoria didn’t work the way he thought. Alice wants nothing to do with them, and Jasper thinks that he’s the biggest fool to ever walk the planet when he sees the solid, certain vision of Alice turning and running far, far, far away.

“No,” he doesn’t mean to say the word, but his voice brings her attention to him.

She’s still on all fours, and her body is actually trembling. Her black eyes watch him with fear, but there is a resignation there. And ten suddenly there is a choice Jasper must make.

Because there _is_ a way that he can have her.

All he has to do is tell her to come with them. He doesn’t even need to make it a command or a threat. He just has to say the words. _“Come on_ ,” and then she’s following after them obediently.

Rosalie’s words haunt him.

_“You what? Will take over as her keeper? So she can trade one jailer for another?”_

When Jasper falls to his knees, Alice flinches, and the sight makes his reality so painful that its almost unbearable. He wonders if this is what it feels like to have your heart break. Because he loves this girl, as impossible as it is. And he want nothing more than to have her at his side, happy and safe and cared for.

But that is not the future that awaits them if she goes with them now. That future will fizzle out and die if Alice comes back with them tonight. And the pain is so, so sharp, he can’t focus on anything else.

The only thing he can focus on is her face. Her small, terrified, beautiful face. She’s staring back at him intently, and a flicker of confusion twitches her brow as she watches him, on his knees before her, his expression _shattered_.

“ _Don’t you dare assume you have some claim on her just because you do one good thing in your life_.”

The first good thing Jasper has done is this: he kills her captors, and puts a stop to the abuse that has plagued her for all of her years.

The second good thing Jasper does in his life is this:

“Go,” he croaks, and her eyes widen even further, almost imperceptibly, “it’s okay. You’re free.” He nods back the way she came and watches, anguished, as she stands and slow backs away. Away from him, away from Edward and Emmett, and away from a future that would only trap her in the shell of what used to be a bright future.

His misery is all-encompassing, and when she eventually backs away too far for them to see, Jasper knows that it’s over. Victoria and James are dead, turning into ash as the time passes.

And Alice is gone.

* * *

He almost doesn’t return with them. After all, Alice is gone now and Jasper never had a backup plan that didn’t include an alternative to just… going back to Maria. He hates the relief he feels when he knows that he can simply reappear and be accepted back.

It wouldn’t be without a screaming match or a fight or three, but it would be possible. And it would be _easy_.

The harder option is the one that Edward provides.

They’ve been wandering for nearly a day now. Well, no. Jasper has been wandering. Emmett and Edward have been silently tagging along.

And when Edward finally verbalizes the offer that Jasper has been watching him try to word properly in his mind, Jasper doesn’t even know what to do.

“Do you really want to go back there?” Edward doesn’t need to specify. There’s only one place Jasper would—or _could_ —go back to. “Is Monterrey that important?”

“Monterrey was never important,” Jasper speaks, his voice sounding robotic. But he’s… lost now. Alice was his ticket _out_. His North Star, guiding him to a home and a life he coveted far too fiercely than what had been healthy. “Not to me.”

“Then come back with us. Start a better life.”

“And eat animals?” Jasper wants to scoff, but he can’t even muster up the energy to continue being judgmental. “Unlikely.”

“So, that’s it then?” Edward lets his hands fall to his sides, as if defeated.

“I had it all in my hands,” Jasper mutters, his eyes focusing intently on a leaf as it falls slowly to the earth. “I knew every card. I controlled every aspect. And I still fucked it up.”

“You can’t control everything.” Emmett’s voice is quiet, and Jasper hates the pity in his tone.

“I can try.”

“Look then,” Edward provides, and when Jasper’s eyes fall to his fierce expression, Edward repeats himself. “I’m serious. Look into the future. Because right now your fucked-up daydreams about heading back into war are just showing you _that_ path. Pick another path. Look and see what happens if you come with us.” There’s a beat of silence. “I’m serious.”

“I can only see possibilities. If a decision is unmade then the future isn’t certain.”

“Then make your damn decision.”

Jasper has never had a plan B. He has an escape route in Maria, but other than finding Alice, he hasn’t even tried to consider an alternative. The one Edward offers is… it’s almost too good to be a real offer. Of course, Jasper doesn’t want to ingest animal blood or live amongst humans. Jasper doesn’t relish in the idea of living in the same house as five other goddamn vampires.

But Jasper looks anyways, and his mind lights up with possibility.

His visions show him so much that he almost gasps as flicker after flicker run through his mind so fast that he barely has time to recognize what he’s seeing before a new one has taken it’s place.

He sees so much. Quiet talks with Carlisle. Warm moments with Esme. Laughter shared with Emmett. Hunting with Rosalie. Bickering with Edward.

Not only does he see countless visions of these strange Cullens, but eventually he starts seeing Alice, and that almost drives him back down to his knees. Because despite the pain he’s in now, it’s not over. There is still a chance for him. For _them_.

“ _Can you tell me a story?” Alice hums as she works. She holds something carefully in his hands. A pair of jeans in her grasp as she threads a string through the fabric over and over. “I don’t care if it’s real. Or if it hasn’t happened. Or anything,” she holds up the pants then, and Jasper somehow knows that they’re_ his _._

_“I don’t have a lot of happy stories,” he murmurs quietly as he watches her every move._

_“I don’t mind,” and she smiles up at him so beautifully, her eyes twinkling. “I just want to hear your voice.” She smiles and goes back to mending the clothing and Jasper knows he’s never loved anything more. Not even human blood._

_He catches his reflection in a mirror across the room, and golden eyes stare back._

The hope that flickers through him feels like the only thing keeping him upright.

When he looks up at Edward, after several quiet seconds, he’s shocked to see the younger boy smiling. “Come on,” he eventually gestures with his head and Jasper can’t help but notice Emmett’s attention flickering between the two, looking confused.

“So…” Emmett looks like he’s too nervous to be excited as he speaks, “are we going home?” He pauses, watching as Edward begins to walk away, Jasper slowly moving as well.

“We’ll be there in a couple of days,” Edward speaks to Jasper, ignoring Emmett’s question. “Esme will probably have the spare room cleared out before we even get back.”

Jasper rolls his eyes, thinking, _I don’t need a ‘room’,_ but he knows Edward is right.

“We can hunt before we get there,” Edward speaks, and Jasper knows he’s already concocting plans in his head; Jasper can see the outcome and he grimaces knowing that they really do intend for him to try his first animal before they make it back to Vermont.

“We can’t… hold that off?” Jasper frowns and doesn’t even _want_ to look forward to see what his first animal hunt is going to look like.

“The animal diet isn’t that bad,” Emmett mutters as he turns to follow. “You just don’t know what’s good yet.”

“Humans are ‘good’.”

The Cullen boys don’t argue with that.

* * *

The years pass slowly after that.

The Cullens are nothing if not gracious. They are polite and giving and understanding even when they have no business being so patient with someone who spent decades terrorizing the south.

By all accounts it makes no sense that they opened up their home for his damaged, dangerous man. Jasper worries sometimes that Maria, or perhaps one of the other southern warlords that hated every fiber of Jasper’s being, might try and track him down.

He will have to disappear the moment it becomes a vision in his mind (he will never lead any danger toward the Cullens, no matter how much he enjoys this peace).

Thankfully he sees that despite his presence, they are safe (for now), and that is enough to allow him to get a little comfortable with these new surroundings.

He learns that he loves to read, and that while he doesn’t understand the appeal of most television programs, there is a well of information he now has access to, and it seems that he can’t devour it all fast enough. He spends days boxed away in Carlisle’s study, hours spent in front of the TV with Emmett, and the stories these vampires have to share are certainly interesting.

It’s fascinating to hear about the lives they’ve all lead. Lives lived far from territorial land disputes and never-ending slaughter. He does find himself nervous when he learns about Carlisle’s relationship to the Volturi kings, but Edward is kind enough to assure Jasper (later, and privately) that Carlisle hasn’t seen them in over a century, and that he’s safe with them there.

That his gift is still to be a secret, even amongst this strange ‘family’.

It’s a hard word to use sometimes. Especially when Esme tries counting him amongst their number.

He thinks maybe that’s maybe something he will be comfortable with one day, with a small woman at his side and the hole in his heart finally filled. But for now, Jasper isn’t sure that he should be counted as part of this family.

 _Alice presses her lips to his firmly. She is shaking and when he’s this close to her he can_ feel _the anxiety and the fear. Jasper focuses on his love for her as he kisses her back, and when she sighs his name, he is in heaven._

Jasper can not help but live life inside of his head. It’s a hard habit to break, especially when he knows that Alice is still on his horizon, just like she always was. But that was before. Back when Jasper hadn’t known about James or Victoria. His hyper-fixation on her was born out of his desire for something more, and his need to have another option. Then the carpet was ripped out from under his feet and his entire future crashed and burned behind his eyelids.

He trusts his visions a little less nowadays.

Yet rarely, he catches a little glimmer of Alice as she is _now_.

She wanders through unfamiliar cities mainly, sticking close to the shadows and scarcely allowing herself to be seen even by a human. And she hunts… strangely.

It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen, and it both confuses and upsets him.

_She stalks the man for a while, waiting for him to round the corner where the lights are more sparse before she lunges. There is a split second between the crack of his human neck and spine where Alice flinches back from her prey, shaking her head and crying out as if she is the one being harmed. It’s only after she’s shaken her unseen ailment free that she scurries to the body and snatches it somewhere unseen where she can feed before the heart fully stills and the blood begins to cool._

He and Edward talk about it a few times, and Edward theorizes that perhaps her strange hunting habits are formed from years of trauma. Jasper senses that it’s more than that.

They know she is gifted to some extent; the sensations they experienced as a group back in Philly suggest its an offensive ability, but Jasper wonders if it isn’t more defensive. A type of projection used to keep others away.

It’s six years after James’ and Victoria’s demise that he sees her in a place he recognizes again.

“She’s in Philly again,” he comments to Emmett as he pulls himself out of another vivid vision. He’s been sitting and watching the man play some type of game and Jasper can’t help but find himself fascinated with the riveting storyline. Emmett _loves_ having an audience when he plays his games.

The larger man puts the video game controller down and turns toward Jasper. “Now-Alice? Or future-Alice?”

They’re both technically future-Alice, but Jasper knows what Emmett’s asking. “Now.”

Emmett nods slowly at that information, and hums. “Wonder what would prompt her to go back _there_?”

Jasper can’t help but agree with the sentiment. Over the next few days he watches as Alice retraces her old steps, eventually leading her to James and Victoria’s final resting place.

_Their ashes are long gone but she kneels where the fire had burnt them into nothing and rests her hand against the dirty pavement._

Weeks pass, and he watches, day after day, as Alice returns to the same spot and sits in the shade. Sometimes humans pass by, and she holds her breath and smiles. Some days, they get too close and she’s forced to make herself scarce.

“She’s waiting for something,” Edward comments after the fifty-second day. “Is it not obvious?”

“Edward,” Esme scolds Edward’s incredulous tone. She did always hate when he comments on anyones thoughts in front of other people. Always looking for ways to help the members of the household improve upon their manners…

“For what?” Jasper can’t figure it out, despite his dozens of attempts. Her actions make no sense to him.

“Maybe she’s waiting for you? Ever considered that?”

Jasper doesn’t even listen in as Esme goes into what Emmett calls ‘Mom-mode’, ignoring the woman’s scolding tone as his mind flickers through each and every vision he’s seen over the past several weeks.

One sticks out in his mind.

“ _Waiting on company?” A woman smiles down at Alice as she slides her a cup of something warm and dark. “Or do you really enjoy your alone time?”_

_It’s the eighth day in a row Alice has spent her afternoon in the tiny diner, perched atop a bright-red barstool. She shows up, slides a few crumbled dollar bills over the counter, and orders whatever drink special is written in chalk on the board fastened to the front door._

_She doesn’t feed on these people. She doesn’t even pretend to drink the beverage. Her black eyes sometimes wander to the television in the corner, but mainly she sits and lets her eyes take in every sight set before her._

_“Waiting,” she repeats the word, speaking it gently as she runs her finger along the rip of the mug. “I suppose I am.”_

Jasper leaves for Philadelphia within the hour.

Carlisle is off at work, Rosalie and Emmett are on a small trip in San Fransisco, and both Esme and Edward have very little advice for him before he makes his way out the door.

“Don’t fuck it up,” Edward mutters to him when he knows that Esme isn’t listening. Jasper shoves him away at that comment, but there’s no true ire behind it. Edward’s assistance has been invaluable to him over these past few years in so many ways, and Jasper knows he is better off having the boy around.

“Any idea how long you’ll be gone?” Esme frowns up at him as she digs through a beige bag, pressing a dark-leather wallet into his hands. Jasper doesn’t refuse it; his visions show him he’s going to need it, even if he isn’t sure why.

He pockets the wallet and shrugs. “As soon as I can.”

“Just,” and Jasper can’t help but smile at how frazzled she looks as she tries to find encouraging words, “bring her home. And be patient with her.”

“I will, Esme.”

“And be yourself,” she admonishes gently, her hands fidgeting at her sides, “she’s going to love you. She’d be a fool not to.”

Jasper quickly meets Edward’s eyes behind Esme and Edward gestures toward her. Of course, Jasper already knows that Esme is itching for a hug, so when he leans forward and allows the woman to finally embrace him—the first hug he’s given her since he’s joined them—he can’t help but flip off Edward behind her back.

And if Esme thinks Edward’s snort is misplaced, well. She doesn’t express it while Jasper is still standing on the porch.

Jasper doesn’t stop until he’s about a hundred miles away from Philadelphia, and it’s only to hunt. He gorges himself on animal blood until he can’t even bear the thought of taking another gulp. Its the first time he’s been off on his own since he joined the Cullens and he’d be lying if he weren’t a tad apprehensive of being on his own in a city filled to the brim with humans.

He’s had his fair share of slip-ups in the past few years. Of course, his visions are vital in keeping his diet in check, often warning him of his own mistakes before they can happen.

But… accidents still occur.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out which area of the city she’s in, and when he catches her scent—it’s been almost seven years now and the memory of it is as vivid as it was during that fateful autumn night—he has to stop him from running straight to her.

It’s daytime, but thankfully the sky is overcast, and Jasper knows that it’s going to rain soon. He fixes himself on a park bench in the shade and waits for the first sign of rain.

The instant the first raindrop falls Jasper is walking, hands in his jacket pockets as he makes a beeline for the tiny diner he knows Alice has just arrived in.

He’s… nervous suddenly. Knowing that everything has led up to this. That this encounter is about to change his life, hopefully for the better. For the first time in his immortal life Jasper is afraid of what comes next.

Holding his breath, he slowly pushes his way through the door.

He smiles at a waitress who greets him in passing, running a hand through his wet hair. By the time he’s removed his jacket his eyes are already on her back and her posture stiffens as his scent washes over her.

She doesn’t turn to look at him, and Jasper is suddenly nervous that she’s terrified again. But she hasn’t fled yet, and that might mean _something_.

He moves slowly.

The woman behind the counter is pushing a mug across the counter toward Alice when he reaches the stool beside her, and before Alice can slide her crumbled dollar bills across the counter he hands the woman a credit card, plucked blindly from whatever spare wallet Esme handed him.

Alice stills her hand and returns it to her lap.

The waitress is stunned at his appearance, if not a little flustered, and excuses herself to the opposite end of the bar where a man is asking for a refill of his coffee.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Jasper finally speaks as he sits beside her, moving slowly. He doesn’t want to alarm her. Just wants to talk.

“It’s okay,” she finally speaks, and her words cause a specific type of elation to bubble up from within him.

He’s trying to play it cool, despite it feeling as if every atom in his body is vibrating with excitement and nerves. He folds his jackets over his arm and places it on the empty stool beside him. When he turns back toward Alice he’s frozen in place to find her staring at him intently.

She’s so goddamn beautiful.

Her eyebrows are furrowed slightly, and Jasper can’t deny that she looks better, but not great. Better, because there is a life in her eyes that wasn’t there before, back when James and Victoria had her at their every beck and call. She is cleaner, her clothes fitting her better. Her hair even looks as if it’s been trimmed. It’s more even all around, the random long pieces of it cut back.

But the darkness under her eyes sticks out harshly against her pale skin. Her eyes are so black that suddenly Jasper is worried for every human in this establishment.

“Not thirsty?”

They both know he’s not talking about the warm latte in front of her.

Alice pulls her eyes away at that comment. Jasper almost regrets the inquiry. It doesn’t matter that he’s committed every facet of her expression to his memory, he wants to stare at her beauty for as long as she’ll allow.

“Of course I am,” she mutters under her breath as her gaze finds the tiny fern art that decorates the cup. Her lips quirk up slightly at the sight, and Jasper can’t tear his eyes away from her face for even a moment. “I just… I don’t know.”

Jasper nods. When the waitress returns he orders a black coffee for himself and waits for the woman to disappear again before turning back toward Alice.

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

Alice’s words are soft as she runs her finger around the rim of her drink.

“Is that what you wanted?” He asks, his eyes entranced by her hand. “To never see me again?”

It takes a few seconds, but Alice shakes her head. “Why did you do it?”

“You needed help.”

“Lots of people do. I’m hardly the only person out there dealt a bad hand. But you didn’t help others, did you?” She turns back toward him, and her words are almost accusatory as she narrows her eyes at him. The way she looks at him unnerves him, as if she’s seeing more than she lets on. “You just helped me.”

“I could have helped plenty over the years. You can’t know that.”

“I know southern warlords don’t involve themselves in affairs up north without an ulterior motive.” His expression must morph at that statement, because she continues quickly. “What? You don’t exist in a vacuum. James and Victoria told me all about the dangers of the south. All about the terror that exists once you wander too far to the border.”

“So, you know who I am?”

The waitress returns with Jasper’s coffee and the credit card he’s supplied her with. Then she leaves again.

Alice quirks an eyebrow as she turns her head, reading the card before he can put it back into his wallet. “You don’t look like an ‘Emmett’.”

Jasper almost wants to laugh at the fact that Esme had given him Emmett’s wallet, as if he were off to run an errand and not traveling across state lines for an undetermined amount of time.

“It’s not mine.”

Alice hums at that. “Risky business, using your victims’ cards like that.”

“He’s not a victim he’s…” the word brother almost slips out of his mouth but he stops himself. “A friend.” There’s a beat of silence. “You’ve met him. The big guy.”

Alice nods, her eyes still looking at him strangely. “Your eyes are like theirs now.”

“They are.”

“What’s that all about?”

“I don’t feed on humans,” he speaks the words low enough that he knows none of the humans will pick up his words.

Jasper can feel her hope as if it’s a tangible thing, and its such a foreign _thing_ that it nearly knocks him off his stool. He stares down at her in shock and then the sensation is gone, and Alice looks nervous.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t know there was an alternative.”

“You _are_ gifted,” he whispers, and then kicks himself. He’s supposed to be operating with as much care and tact as he can muster, but he’s so awestruck over the fact that he’s sitting there, looking at and speaking to the woman he’s been in love with for decades.

And she doesn’t even know his name.

Alice laughs at his observation and he’s suddenly convinced he’s said the wrong thing once more. “Gift. Yeah, sure.”

“I’m sorry,” he ducks his head and turns toward the dark brown beverage steaming before him.

They are silent for a few minutes after that. The waitress checks up on them once more, looking between the quiet pair nervously and asking the two if they’re _sure_ they don’t need a menu. She leaves them alone after that and Jasper can see that it’s certainly for good.

The attractive couple at the bar are a curious thing to behold, but Jasper knows that her survival instincts are finally kicking in, and she’ll be steering clear of them now.

“What’s your name then?”

“Jasper.”

She pauses. “How did you find me?”

Jasper turns to look back as Alice again, and she looks miserable again.

“How much are you willing to believe?”

“The truth,” her words are firm and her eyes are hard as she looks back at him. “I only want the truth.”

“The truth is a bit-farfetched.”

“You upended my life. I deserve that much.”

“I can see you,” he lifts up a hand and taps his temple. “What happens with the choices you make, and where you decide to go.”

“So you’re psychic?”

He nods at her words spoken so quietly, her voice so hopeful that Jasper nods once. “Yes.”

“I suspect you saw what I was planning?”

Waves of anxiety that don’t belong to him brush up against his awareness, and he knows that he’s missed something. “No. I didn’t.” There’s a pause between them and Alice looks pained. “I suspect whatever you were planning wasn’t a concrete decision. What was it?”

“I don’t want to tell you.” Her whisper is so soft that Jasper just nods again.

(She’ll eventually tell him, months later, that it was a slaughter. That she was so miserable, so torn up by the way her victim’s grief and fear and pain affected her, that she wanted a way out. That she knew the Volturi would dispose of her if she made a big enough mess.

She eventually will talk to Jasper about how she walked into that diner every day, her thirst clawing at her like a rabid beast, and couldn’t bring herself to do it.

But that day is not today, and that decision is still unmade.)

“What do you want with me?” She asks after several more minutes of tense silence. Jasper has taken to watching the television above them in the corner. Some show that he’s seen Esme and Emmett watch together. Some medical drama that Carlisle always rolls his eyes at, always pointing out the inaccuracies and complaining about what he calls ‘an HR nightmare’.

The truth is that he wants so much. Too much. Certainly much more than she’s willing to offer him.

Jasper wants to take hold her and kiss her. He wants to protect her and stand guard for her. He wants to talk to her and soothe her and listen to her and he wants to goddamn much from her that he knows he will only get if she chooses to take this path with him.

“I want a friend,” he supplies. And he knows that is where it will begin.

“That’s all?” She asks, an eyebrow raised. And damn if she isn’t more perceptive than he’s expected of her. But that’s his own fault for underestimating the woman he knows he’s destined to be with.

“I…” And he doesn’t want to say anything else, because he doesn’t want to frighten her off.

 _I refuse to be another jail for you_ , he wants to say, but doesn’t.

 _I will never ask for anything you aren’t willing to give_ , he needs her to know, but can’t say.

 _This is not my future to design_ , he realizes as he stares at this tiny woman.

Alice truly holds his world in her hands. And she doesn’t even fucking know it yet.

But when she lifts her hand—and Jasper can _see_ the hesitation in the twitch of her fingers and the frown that flickers across her brow—and reaches out, placing it softly overtop of his, he thinks he might actually die.

“Your emotions are telling.”

Alice is smiling at him and it is shy and it is knowing and it is so, so beautiful and Jasper wants nothing more than to kiss her in that moment.

But he can’t, and he doesn’t, because he knows that while that time will come, it is not now.

He turns his hand in her grasp and holds hers firmly, and visions blossom across his mind’s eye as his love and happiness overflow. And when Alice sighs, closing her eyes at what she must be sensing from him (because of _course_ she’s an empath, he’ll think to himself a few days from now) he knows that they’ll be alright.

* * *

For the first couple of days Jasper is still and cautious at her side. Gripping her hand back when she reaches out for him. Smiling back when she grins up at him. He doesn’t move unless she moves first, always letting her lead.

It’s their ninth day together and the second hunt he’s guided her on when she finally approaches him with purpose, and when she reaches up and laces her fingers behind his neck and pulls him down to kiss him, it takes him a few seconds before he’s kissing her back.

It’s the first time she’s caught him off guard, and _god_ it makes him love her more.

Two months later she says it for the first time, and the words are so sweet that Jasper nearly swallows them as he kisses her again, and suddenly he’s saying it as much as Alice will allow.

“I love you,” he kisses her jaw, “I love you,” he kisses above her ear, “I love you.” And she’s crying and she’s smiling and he never wants to put her down.

It’s after that moment when he’s forced to acknowledge that he is never going back to Mexico. That he will do whatever it takes to keep Alice safe and happy and away from Maria and the southern battles and absolutely anything that might threaten her in an capacity.

Jasper knows that he never wants to indulge in the violence he’s so good at, but he also knows that he will burn the entire world down to it’s bones if it means protecting Alice.

Because he is Jasper. Oracle of death. God of war. Eye of the South. He is the most dangerous vampire to ever wander the lands of Mexico and live to see the way the other side lives.

He has been gifted with power. Power which the world, as he knows it, has never seen before. Power that he knows Maria will come back for when she needs him again. Power that he knows the Volturi would covet if they were aware of it.

Power that he relies on now, to protect Alice from everything and anything this dark, cruel world has in it’s arsenal.

It’s almost two years to the day when they eventually rejoin the Cullens.

They’re west of Columbus now, and Alice is doing the best she can to remain calm at his side as they make their way toward the home. But even despite her attempts at stifling her own emotion, some tendrils of her fear and nerves still slip through.

“Sorry,” she mumbles as she pulls the stray emotions back in. It’s something she’s always struggled with, but she’s gotten better at it with time and practice. She was never _allowed_ to feel things in the beginning. Her emotions had to be sacrificed if she was to survive being with James and Victoria for as many years as she was.

To relearn her emotions, with her pathokinesis affecting her every moment, has been a challenging thing.

“Proud of you,” he mutters as he leans down to plant a kiss on her head. “It’s okay to be nervous. I’m sure Esme is pacing a hole in the floor.”

Alice smiles at that idea before turning her head up to meet his lips with her own. When she pulls back he stares into her golden eyes and the sense of _rightness_ in the world is an all-encompassing thing nowadays. He focuses on the love he feels for her, knowing that the comfort of his own emotions is comfort for her, too.

She closes her eyes, sighs, and reopens them as she fixes her sight on the house in the distance.

“I can do this,” she mutters to herself softly as she walks, “ _we_ can do this.”

“Hard part is over,” Jasper nods, her hand squeezing his tightly in reply, “now it’s time to meet your family.”

Alice’s smile is so bright and disarming that when the Cullens eventually meet them outside, they all relax at the sight of it.

“Everyone,” Jasper calls, and he knows he only has seconds before Esme is bounding down the porch stairs to embrace them both, “I want you to meet Alice.”

It’s in this moment, Jasper’s first vision of Alice becomes a reality.

She looks up at him as he speaks, her eyes bright and wide, her lips pursed in a reserved smile. She squeezes his hand and then she steps away from him, disappearing from his side to make the first move.

When Esme reaches the two, Alice is already laughing, her arms thrown wide.

**Author's Note:**

> Funny enough this prompt was my submission, but I didn't have a single idea about what to write for it until a little over a week ago.
> 
> To listen to the playlist for this fic, check out my profile. 
> 
> Thanks again for the support, and don't forget: you can vote for my in the TwiFic Fandom Awards (link in my profile) every day up until the 28th of February! (2021) Hope you enjoyed!


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